Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigns at Trump's request

"At your request, I am submitting my resignation", Sessions wrote in the Wednesday letter to Trump.

The president has often made his attorney general the target of attacks for other Justice Department matters, too - a violation of norms that have traditionally protected the independence of federal law enforcement.

With ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions getting the "you're fired" talk today, eyes in D.C. are now on Acting AG Matthew Whitaker, who is expected to be overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian Federation investigation. Sessions' exit also opens up the question of who will permanently fill the position.

Sessions received the request to resign from Kelly, not the President, on Wednesday morning, an administration official said. Previously he was a conservative legal commentator who was critical of the scope of Mueller's probe. Since the day I was honored to be sworn in as Attorney General of the United States, I came to work at the Department every day determined to do my duty and serve my country. "It would create a constitutional crisis if this were a prelude to ending or greatly limiting the Mueller investigation".

The broadsides escalated in recent months, with Trump telling a television interviewer that Sessions "had never had control" of the Justice Department and snidely accusing him on Twitter of not protecting Republican interests by allowing two GOP congressmen to be indicted before the election. "I don't have an attorney-general", he said in September.

Sessions said that he did not think he should lead the investigation since he had been a Trump campaign surrogate.

Trump wanted Sessions to fire special counsel Robert Mueller and openly panned him for not appointing a second special counsel to investigate 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Sessions recused himself from the Russian Federation investigation quickly after being sworn into office.